Public Policy Polling Media Alert: Obama leads by 2, Hassan by 4 in NH

PPP's newest New Hampshire poll finds Barack Obama with a narrow lead over Mitt Romney in the state, 49/47. That represents a three point improvement for Obama from a week ago when he had trailed 49/48.

Granite State voters narrowly approve of the job Obama's doing, 49/48. They're not terribly fond of Romney with 47% of voters rating him favorably to 51% with a negative opinion. They trust Romney more than Obama by a 49/47 margin on the economy, but they trust Obama over Romney by a 51/46 spread on foreign policy. New Hampshire voters mostly think Obama's victories in the last two debates equaled out Romney's big win the first debate- asked to say who was the winner of the debates as a whole Romney wins out just narrowly, 46/43.

Women are the key group keeping Obama ahead in New Hampshire. He has a 57/39 advantage with them that's just enough to make up for his trailing by a 56/39 margin with men. Romney has a 47/45 advantage with independents, but Obama's overcoming that by winning over slightly more Republican voters (9%) than Romney is Democrats (6%).

In the Governor's race Democrat Maggie Hassan continues to be the favorite over Republican foe Ovide Lamontagne, leading 48/44. Hassan has considerably better favorability numbers (46/40) than Lamontagne who is quite unpopular with only 41% of voters rating him positively to 51% with a negative opinion.

Hassan is up 55/36 with women and has a 47/41 lead with independents. She's led all three polls we've done of the Governor's race since the general election field was set.

Two other notes from New Hampshire:

-Democrats lead the generic legislative ballot 46/43, including a 40/37 lead with independents. That should put them in position to pick up a lot of seats this fall.

-Enthusiasm doesn't appear as though it will be an issue for Democrats in the state this fall. 70% of them say they're 'very excited' to cast their ballots, compared to 66% of Republicans.

This analysis is also available on our website:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/10/obama-leads-narrowly-in-new-hampshire.html

A press release and full crosstabs are attached-